white as ashes, and wrote and wrote all next day in their
notebooks, and whispered together full of excitement, and they were
sharp-spoken with the men when they offered to ask any questions.

"Then there came a day," said Captain Littlepage, leaning
toward me with a strange look in his eyes, and whispering quickly.
"The men all swore they wouldn't stay any longer; the man on watch
early in the morning gave the alarm, and they all put off in the
boat and got a little way out to sea. Those folks, or whatever
they were, come about 'em like bats; all at once they raised
incessant armies, and come as if to drive 'em back to sea. They
stood thick at the edge o' the water like the ridges o' grim war;
no thought o' flight, none of retreat. Sometimes a standing fight,
then soaring on main wing tormented all the air. And when they'd
got the boat out o' reach o' danger, Gaffett said they looked back,
and there was the town again, standing up just as they'd seen it
first, comin' on the coast. Say what you might, they all believed
'twas a kind of waiting-place between this world an' the next."

The captain had sprung to his feet in his excitement, and made
excited gestures, but he still whispered huskily.

"Sit down, sir," I said as quietly as I could, and he sank
into his chair quite spent.

"Gaffett thought the officers were hurrying home to report and
to fit out a new expedition when they were all lost. At the time,
the men got orders not to talk over what they had seen," the old
man explained presently in a more natural tone.